Technology, Society, & Developing Both

This is not the first article I’ve read that suggested the unrest in Baltimore is more of a class issue than a race one, given the diversity of the police force and government officials there. I can’t say I’m entirely convinced, even just given the anecdote provided in this story, but it’s certainly not the same situation as Ferguson, which had a mostly white police force extracting revenue from a largely black community.

It was only a matter of time before Baltimore exploded. In the more than three decades I have called this city home, Baltimore has been a combustible mix of poverty, crime, and hopelessness, uncomfortably juxtaposed against rich history, friendly people, venerable institutions and pockets of old-money affluence.

I think the two are inexorably linked. The problems of race in this case are a result of a history of economic imbalance. The protesters who reside in a lower class do so because history gave them a start in one, prejudice that stems from the same history continues to keep them there. Or, more simply, people don’t protest racism that makes them rich.

Everything is ultimately a class issue, because everything is ultimately about having and not having, about wanting more than others have, about greed and poverty and a basic imbalance. It might manifest itself in many ways, including how people look differently from each other, but that’s just the superficial excuse to give your fears a tangible target. It all boils down to letting our natural sense of survival lash out in unchecked, irrational ways.